Downfall of Tor and Freedom of the Press

Recently there has been a bit of a drama going on in the Tor community.
Some people have made claims that Jacob Appelbaum is guilty of sexual
harassment, sexual assault and even rape. None of the claimed victims
have made actual reports to the authorities or have brought up any
evidence. These accusations were made mostly on Twitter. Someone has
also made a website that includes multiple claims, and the tweet
button on the site makes a tweet saying that it is Jacob Appelbaum's
website. As it stands this whole fiasco looks a lot like a character
assassination operation.

This all started with Tor Project's announcement in June 2nd that
said the following: "Long time digital advocate, security researcher,
and developer Jacob Appelbaum stepped down from his position at The Tor
Project on May 25, 2016.". After this announcement claims about sexual
assault and rape started popping up on Twitter and people made the
website with the clear intention of ruining his name. As of this time
there was no evidence of any wrong doing on Jacob's part and no victim
had reported him to authorities.

June 6th Jacob Appelbaum released his own statement about what is
going on. In his statement he denies the claims of sexual misconduct and
says he is "prepared to use legal channels" to protect his reputation,
something that none of the so called "victims" have shown any will to
do, which makes it seem like their claims are completely false. On this
day Cult of the Dead Cow also released their statement which says
they have "decided to remove Jake from the herd". Note that no evidence
of any wrong doing has been released on this day.

June 7th Gizmodo published their story of an eyewitness that
claimed Jacob had sexually assaulted a woman in a bar. The claimed
victim published her own statement and said this was false. Later
Gizmodo published another story about the "victim's" statement. On
this day some anonymous user also released an email that was
supposedly sent to Jacob Appelbaum by Tom Leckrone. Authenticity of this
email has not to my knowledge been confirmed by either party.

Freedom of the press publicized their statement June 8th. Without
having any evidence and without any legal charges being made against
Jacob they decided to kick him out of their organization, quite drastic
action to take towards someone who is a board member when you don't have
any evidence to back up the claims in my opinion. Seems like Freedom of
the Press doesn't actually care about freedom, protecting freedom while
ruining people's lives just based on anonymous claims on the internet
doesn't quite add up.

It is now 11th of June and a lot of people still assume Jacob is guilty
and there still hasn't been any evidence to back up any of the claims. I
for one don't think it is just to assume his or anyone else's guilt and
ruin their lives without second thought. That is not just and it is in
my opinion detrimental to freedom. People who believe he should be
assumed to be guilty without evidence and due process are not for
freedom, they are for authoritarianism.

The character assassination website has been updated and it now includes
a FAQ section that makes it seem even more likely that none of the
claims are true by stating that the people behind it are afraid of being
identified and sued, which would only be the case if what they have said
is false.

Update (2016-06-12)

One of my friends noted that the FAQ also mentions how the "victims"
don't want to go to the police because they don't trust the police or
fear the police. He also said that this is very irrational since the
police would only investigate the report, not the "victim's" personal
life.

Someone has also made a very nice git repo that archives all of
the different aspect of this case.

Update (2016-06-18)

On 9th the CCC published "A reminder to be excellent to each
other" which many people interpreted to be an indirect response to
the drama around Jacob Appelbaum. Especially one sentence seems to be a
very clear reference to the claims made against Jacob: "Creatures that
are not excellent to others are not welcome." On 17th they made a
tweet confirming that it was indeed in realation to the drama and
that Jacob isn't welcome to their event. This should make you wonder if
if you are being excellent to others if you assume their guilt.